Authors: Clare Harvey
The Gunner Girl
Clare Harvey is an ex-army wife.
The Gunner Girl
, her debut novel, was inspired by her mother-in-law's experiences during WWII. She lives in Nottingham with her
family. Find out more at her Facebook page: www.facebook.com/clareharvey13
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Clare Harvey 2015
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Clare Harvey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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Hardback ISBN: 978-1-47115-053-1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-47115-055-5
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For Chris, of course.
Chapter 1
She was almost home when she saw a swish of blue-grey as the airman rushed towards her up Western Way. The wind lashed a strand of hair across her face. It caught on her mouth
and she spat it out.
He was barrelling towards her, arms outstretched, mouth wide. He was shouting something, but the wind took his words and hurled them down the street, towards London, the Thames and away.
Then she heard him: âGet down! Get down!' The airman hurled himself at her, rugby-tackling her, pinning her down.
She began to scream, but before the sound escaped her mouth, the explosion lifted them both off the ground, tangling their limbs before throwing them back down. His knee was in her groin. The
buttons on his uniform dug into her cheek, her breast. In her mouth, the damp-cloth-sweat smell of his clothes. The juddering weight of him on top of her and the sound: deep, loud, painful. Sudden
and hard: her skull whipped back against the pavement. And then it was over.
Black, and then everything concertinaed. Colours blurred and separated. She tried to breathe, couldn't, choked, shoved at the smoke-coloured weight on top of her. A brass button grinding
into her cheek; acrid smell in her nostrils. Cloth, hair, flesh, grit. They rolled together, slow-motion wrestlers in the settling dust. A sound in her head, bomber engines thudding like
bluebottles buzzing inside her skull.
Then they pulled apart, limbs dragging against each other.
He sat up. She looked up at him. There were patches of grit and mud on his uniform and a cut on his cheekbone, spilling blood.
âAre you all right?' he mouthed. She couldn't hear him properly, her ears still filled with that sound.
âFine, I think,' she said, feeling the words, but not hearing them. She pushed herself into a seated position and rubbed the back of her head.
The pavement was cracked, slabs ripped apart to reveal tree roots and dry earth. The air smelled metallic, dark, burnt.
He staggered slightly, getting up, then he held out a hand for her. She took it and struggled upright, bare legs scraping the broken ground. As she stood, the world span, and everything
blanched, momentarily white. There was gravel on his palm and there were little hard points of contact between their two hands, and she focused on the sharpness of it, holding his hand while the
spinning slowed and the colours returned. The ground shifted; tarmac seeming to undulate like waves. And they stood holding hands as the world stopped turning.
âYou're hurt,' she said, pointing at the cut on his face. He put a hand up to check.
âIt's nothing,' he replied, his voice tinny and far away. He felt the wound, brushed a lock of dark Brylcreemed hair away and rubbed the dust out of his eyes, then noticed that
his RAF cap was missing and let go of her hand as he turned to search for it. She watched him, the blue-grey figure, searching for his cap by the unravelled kerb. Her eyes followed him find it,
pick it up, brush it off and shift it onto the correct position on his head â the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle found and slotted in.
There was dust up her nose and in her mouth. She wiped her lips on the sleeve of her coat, but succeeded only in pushing more grit into her mouth and leaving a smear of red on the beige wool. As
he began to walk back towards her, brushing the dust from his jacket, she looked beyond him, at the place the bomb had struck.
âWell, we were lucky, weren't we?' said the airman, as he drew level. âI don't hold out much hope for the poor blighters at number thirty-two, though,' he
continued, following her gaze. She looked past him to the smoking pile. It was like a giant's game of spillikins, a mess of sticks and rubble. She could hear the sound of the belated air-raid
siren starting its slow wail. âYou're a bit shaken up, I can see that. I'm not too chipper myself, to be honest. Let's get you home. You'll feel better after a cup of
tea,' he said. He touched her lightly on the forearm. She turned to face him.
âNow, where is it you live?' he said. There were specks of gravel on his cheeks, and the livid slash of blood. His eyes were blue and round, like a child's.
âI live at number thirty-two,' she replied.
Looking back, she thought the day ought to have felt more important. She looked for signs â she should surely have been able to sense that something life-changing was
about to happen? But she hadn't. Life-changing things had been happening to everyone else since the start of the war, but not to her, not to Vanessa Tucker from number thirty-two. Everything
that day felt so very normal.
That afternoon, there was a new Pathé newsreel in. The hazy swirl of the smoke curled up past the flickering screen at the cinema, as the afternoon crowd sucked on Capstans and Woodbines
in the fuggy darkness. It had the usual jaunty music and newsreader with a voice like blocks of wood being tapped against each other: tap, tap, tap-tap. The Queen had just visited the Auxiliary
Territorial Service depot, the voice rapped out, and black-and-white figures scurried on the screen. The Queen smiled, sweetly interested in the busy lives of the ATS, a piece of fondant icing
among the dense fruit cake of uniforms and guns. Mary Churchill, the Prime Minister's daughter, was there, making a wobbly curtsey and smiling a sad smile. And Vanessa thought about her
sister, Joan, who was about to turn eighteen and was joining the ATS. She wondered if Joan would be billeted with the Prime Minister's daughter â what a lark, if she was!
After that, she lost interest. She had to count up her change and make sure she wasn't even half a bob out or Mr Evans would be on at her, again, the old goat. He made no secret of the
fact that she'd only got the job because her dad was a mason, too. And once, he touched her behind as she bent down to pick up her refreshments tray.
All her friends thought that being an usherette must be a terrific job: getting to see the flicks for free every day. But she never got to see the whole film because of stocking-up and checking
her change and there was always some joker who came in late and had to be shown to his seat. She wasn't allowed to sit down, either, not in the public areas, which wasn't easy, what
with these blasted shoes that would always be â whatever Mum said about the leather giving with time â a size too small.
Usually, Vanessa stayed after the matinee, had a cup of tea and a bit of bread-and-scrape in the office with Mrs Evans, because there wasn't quite enough time to get home and back before
the evening show. But today, she had the night off. Today, Dad was off duty and Mum had been saving her sugar ration for weeks for the cake, and they would celebrate Joan's birthday. And
tomorrow, Joan would be taking the train to London to join up.
On the way home, she imagined them all, waiting for her at the table: Dad puffing on his pipe, Mum bustling about in her pinny and Joan sat next to the wireless, listening for the news,
clutching the call-up papers that she hadn't let out of her sight since they came in the post last week.